yet another RAID question

wpublic · Post by **wpublic** » Sat Aug 10, 2002 5:37 am

well, it looks as if one of my drives has crapped out on me. i had it all going well, except for now it does not even let me boot to anything with the drives hooked up and raid controller enabled in bios. it will build the array, then show some errors about one of the drives being offline. so i unhooked everything. then i put the suspect drive in IDE1 slot, disabled promise controller and put in WD OEM data lifeguard floppy. i ran a quick test and all was well. then i ran extended test and i get "fatal error, unable to repair " there was a device error reading disk 1 absolute sector 0, count 1; i tried to format and get the same errors. also, when i boot to the WD disk, i get "could not find a valid FAT32 partition" i think during previous setup attempts while it was in the array, i converted it to NTFS.

anyway, i put in a win98 boot disk and ran fdisk, i get "error reading fixed disk" i wanna try and run format, but i don't know the drive letter for the HDD. it is not C: this particular boot disk i got from bootdisk.com and its purpose is for you to install winXP, but i have used it several times for win2k. the CD-ROM driver is called "tomato" and the drive letter is R:

i tried to install win2k and get "an intenal error has occurred. could not find a place for a swap file"

also get from WD disk, "this drive has one or more errors that are not repairable. the final status code is 0457." and some stuff about how to contact tech support. maybe i will read over my warranty and see if i can get them to send me a new one.

anybody know any other diagnostic and/or repair tools i can run under DOS for this drive?

also, if this drive goes in the trash, i am gonna have to go and get 2 new ones. i really don't want to use this model HDD in my raid setup. instead of replacing the lost drive, when i am putting down money, i would rather put down a bit more and get something better. that is just how i think.

i have narrowed it down to WD 80 GB SE with the 8MB buffer, but still ATA100, OR the MAxtor 80GB ATA133 but only 2MB buffer. i am gonna use it for a server, but also i have this other system, which is used for video capture, and i plan on capturing the files across the network and saving them straight to the server. i am leaning towards the bigger buffer size, because i am moving a lot of files being written in real-time. but i have never really experienced ATA133, so i don't exactly know what to go with. anyone got any ideas, it would be appreciated.

and if anyone thinks this other drive is salvageable, that would also be appreciated.

Busby · Post by **Busby** » Sat Aug 10, 2002 9:43 am

You should be able to RMA it to WD and get a new drive. WD support is very good and I think carries a 3 year warranty.

ATA133 is not all it's caked up to be, simple as that. If you get a new disk go with the 8mb buffer drive, especially since you'll have extended periods of disk writing. RAID is actually rather good with video capturing too. I would say see if WD can RMA the drive and that will only cost you shipping.

wpublic · Post by **wpublic** » Sat Aug 10, 2002 11:32 am

RMA looks and sounds sweet.

what also sounds sweet is where every retail outlet around here has the WD 80GB SE at $140 i can go to googlegear.com and get them for $113 a piece. i had a budget of around $300 and i can get a pair, as well as a pair of rounded floppy cables and 6 rounded IDE cables for around $301 w/ $.50 2nd day fed ex. man, i hate all those IDE ribbons in my case. i can't see a thing

p.s. i did notice in the few seconds i had my RAID array running windows setup, it was a whole lot faster than a regular 5400 rpm HDD. what took me 25 minutes on the 5400 RPM, on the RAID array it only took a matter of seconds. i am salivating...

wpublic · Post by **wpublic** » Sun Sep 01, 2002 7:10 pm

RMA'd that drive and they are sending me a new one, supposedly by the end of the week. thanks for the heads up on the RMA info. WDC seems to be really good with that.

those drives are no longer candidates for my RAID-0, i just got 2 WD 120GB SE i am gonna put in there. the array is gonna be used for storage for video capture.

i still have the other 40GB in IDE1 with the OS, should i install an OS on the array and disable IDE1 and boot to the array when doing capture sessions, or should i just make the array as extended partition(s) to the OS on IDE1?

Busby · Post by **Busby** » Sun Sep 01, 2002 10:03 pm

Keep the 40GB as the boot and then use the RAID for capturing video. Some manufacturers of RAID controllers will even suggest that.

wpublic · Post by **wpublic** » Sun Sep 01, 2002 10:51 pm

ok, i will try that, with both drives jumpered to CS.

edit- once i hooked them up, i booted up, enabled Promise controller, and entered the "fastBuild" utility. i set it for "performance"/raid-0, and set the use as A/V editing, which i guess is how it determines the stripe size.

booted to winXP pro, and now i got found new hardware wizard for RAID controller. looks like it is back to the same ol' same ol'. but i will try and see if the drivers can be installed automatically. no, it can't. gotta try that driver i got from gigabyte site, we'll see what happens...

update - the driver seems to work. so far, so good. now, i went into disk management and i get a window pop up, it is the "initialize and convert" wizard. i want to format this array as NTFS with about 5 or 6 partitions. i got a feeling this wizard is gonna ask me to make it a dynamic disk. i don't know a lot about dynamic disks, but if it is a raid array formatted as NTFS, from what i read, isn't it pointles to make it a dynamic disk? how would it affect performance either way?